Alarming News: I like Morgan Freeberg. A lot.
American Digest: And I like this from "The Blog That Nobody Reads", because it is -- mostly -- about me. What can I say? I'm on an ego trip today. It won't last.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: We were following a trackback and thinking "hmmm... this is a bloody excellent post!", and then we realized that it was just part III of, well, three...Damn. I wish I'd written those.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: ...I just remembered that I found a new blog a short while ago, House of Eratosthenes, that I really like. I like his common sense approach and his curiosity when it comes to why people believe what they believe rather than just what they believe.
Brutally Honest: Morgan Freeberg is brilliant.
Dr. Melissa Clouthier: Morgan Freeberg at House of Eratosthenes (pftthats a mouthful) honors big boned women in skimpy clothing. The picture there is priceless--keep scrolling down.
Exile in Portales: Via Gerard: Morgan Freeberg, a guy with a lot to say. And he speaks The Truth...and it's fascinating stuff. Worth a read, or three. Or six.
Just Muttering: Two nice pieces at House of Eratosthenes, one about a perhaps unintended effect of the Enron mess, and one on the Gore-y environ-movie.
Mein Blogovault: Make "the Blog that No One Reads" one of your daily reads.
The Virginian: I know this post will offend some people, but the author makes some good points.
Poetic Justice: Cletus! Ah gots a laiv one fer yew...
Dr. Jonathan Wai condenses the advice from the “Father of Advertising” David Ogilvy:
In 1963, Ogilvy wrote: “Nowadays it is the fashion to pretend that no single individual is ever responsible for a successful advertising campaign. This emphasis on ‘team-work’ is bunkum — a conspiracy of the mediocre majority. No advertisement, no commercial, and no image can be created by a committee. Most top managements are secretly aware of this, and keep their eyes open for those rare individuals who lay golden eggs.”
Joshua Wolf Shenk recently argued in the New York Times that “the lone genius is a myth that has outlived its usefulness,” and instead advocated for the idea of a creative network or collaborative approach. Apparently 50 years later, the emphasis on collaboration and teamwork continues to be popular. But Ogilvy argued that creativity comes from the mind of the individual.
Seems to me we’re talking about two different things here. Shenk cites an example of Shakespeare co-opting Romeo and Juliet from Arthur Brooke. Which might mean something if anecdotes were data. They’re not, but let’s look at it another way. Have you got a fighting chance at coming up with such a renowned tale, shutting yourself up in an attic with a quill pen and ink fountain all by your little lonesome? For such a product, the team environment displays obvious advantages, most prominent of which is the benefit of feedback. Without that, you can scribble acts and scenes to your heart’s content, but how do you know they’re any good?
Everything creative, however, is not necessarily a play. Some of these works have to appeal not to the desires of large numbers of people from different backgrounds, but rather to nature. They work or they don’t work, as complex systems enjoining simpler things that either work or don’t work. In such cases, the committee is pretty much useless except perhaps for providing money. To make it work, figure out if it can work, how it can work, what needs to happen for it to work, someone needs to sit his happy ass down and get busy. A guy or a gal.
But that isn’t the real story of what’s happening here. The real story is the desperation. We have these people running around who are desperate to engage this “conspiracy of the mediocre majority,” to proliferate the mythology. The best evidence that it is indeed a mythology is the conspiracy itself. If committees were the fountainhead of true creativity, they could simply get to work and the proof would be in the pudding. There would be no need for articles of the sort Mr. Shenk has written.
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I assume Mr. Shenk has a long list of really excellent recent examples — sometime before the 16th century, say — where committees have banged out excellent products and enduring works of art? Because as everyone who has gotten past the EZ tax form knows, committees solve everything. Yep, if you’ve got a problem, just call a meeting! Works every time.
- Severian | 01/20/2015 @ 12:13My experience in the software world is that the more constraints you put on the individual — the more you force him to “collaborate” on code, the more meetings and processes he has to attend to, the less productive and creative the final output.
What I’ve also observed is that companies (and therefore executives and managers) that are worried, try furiously to control the process. The institute elaborate systems (Agile, Six Sigma, Kaizen, etc.) that are magical formulas that are supposed to produce quality code/product.
I’ve yet to see a development team not strangled by these processes.
What I observe is that as companies age, they innovate through acquisition. Their own in-house teams become unable to produce anything greatly innovative, because their all bogged down attending Agile Scrums and being Accountable. They can make incremental improvements in existing product, but real innovation is just out. You can’t nurture a great idea, experiment, play, tweak, scrap half of it and do it all over differently (and in a completely incompatible implementation), on a tightly constrained Agile development cycle.
The real, cool stuff happens in small startups where they’re too busy thinking of amazing things and implementing them to have a process. The big companies acquire a technology, and if they’re good they at least finish baking it, clean it up and make it professional. Then they drown it in process.
- cloudbuster | 01/20/2015 @ 14:35I can Severian, Cathedrals! Whoops, just like Universities, doesn’t seem to work minus the Religious component…….
- Robert Mitchell Jr. | 01/20/2015 @ 16:39“The real, cool stuff happens in small startups where they’re too busy thinking of amazing things and implementing them to have a process. The big companies acquire a technology, and if they’re good they at least finish baking it, clean it up and make it professional. Then they drown it in process.”
My own experience fits into this, like a hand into a glove.
But I have a feeling that we’re not supposed to talk about this…
- mkfreeberg | 01/20/2015 @ 21:22@Morgan, cloudbuster:
Funny, I’ve had that experience, too, but from the other end — I was involved in writing the “policies and procedures” manual for my tiny corner of HyperGlobalMegaCorp. Everyone knew that following the steps exactly would work under perfect conditions…. just like everybody knew that perfect conditions only happened every now and again. I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone say “check the P&P manual” without heavy sarcasm.
@Robert Mitchell Jr
Good example! In fact, feudalism is a good description of the conditions under which socialism is worth more than it costs. In relative peace, when nearly everyone is at subsistence level, and the very idea of change is ruthlessly suppressed by a clerical class… then, yes, socialism seems quite desirable. The few items that aren’t subsistence are made by guilds, where they’re never better or worse, and always the same price, regardless of local conditions. And priests are always on hand to absolve you of sins, provided you do whatever they say. That’s the scenario that gives the Left a collective (heh) chubby. (Needless to say, they’re the clergy).
- Severian | 01/21/2015 @ 06:34Through out my educational and business life I have found “group”- “team” – “collaborative” efforts have just resulted in me doing the work and others at best not getting in the way. I am not great or super but in any group – think project is it not one individual who does all the work and the others are along for the ride, or just throw up barriers rather than actually collude?
- Open other end | 01/21/2015 @ 08:36